#SP11 Region Watch – Lothians

Here we are then, region 3 in our 8-part series of looking at the regions partaking in the Scottish Parliament elections and speculating over who may win where based largely on recent polling, but also a little bit on transparent hunches here and there. Let’s kick off shall we:

Almond Valley â€“ The tightest constituency after the boundary changes were applied to the 2007 result, with the SNP notional victors by a slender 4 votes. Yes, 4 votes. Angela Constance should be a popular candidate locally but any SNP victory would have to go down as a surprise as there’s no reason why this constituency shouldn’t follow the national swing. Labour gain â€“ Laurence Fitzpatrick

Edinburgh Central â€“ On paper this is something of a four-way contest but in reality (in my view) a straight dogfight between Labour and the Lib Dems. This is student territory if my local geography is correct and I see the Lib Dem voteshare sinking even deeper than the national swing we are seeing in the polls. Labour hold â€“ Sarah Boyack

Edinburgh Eastern â€“ Another tight contest from the 2007 notional results with the SNP ahead by only 545 votes. There are probably too many local factors at play here to put too much stock in the national swing from the polls so it is something of a judgement call. On one hand the incumbent is Kenny MacAskill, a highly visible Minister which will come with an electoral benefit. On the other hand (1) the challenger is Ewan Aitken who is the former leader of the Council so no stranger to the electorate (2) Kenny is guaranteed re-election via the lists which Ewan is surely reminding the voters (3) the Labour machine in this part of Edinburgh is fierce, winning a UK-level award at party conference last year and confounding many expectations with a super comfortable victory in the Westminster elections (4) There is a sizeable Lib Dem vote from 2007 that, if polls are anything to go by, will largely, tactically go to Labour. I say all this to set up what I think will happen â€“ Labour gain â€“ Ewan Aitken

Edinburgh Northern & Leith â€“ Despite regular speculation that the incumbent would be retiring, this should be a straightforward win for Labour despite the Lib Dems and the recently parachuted-in Shirley-Anne Somerville vying for main challenger position. Labour hold â€“ Malcolm Chisholm

Edinburgh Pentlands â€“ A three-horse race if you look at it one way and a safe Tory seat if you look at it another. David McLetchie appears to be a popular MSP in these parts (and nationally). Labour and the SNP are effectively neck-and-neck, 2,600 votes shy of the Conservativesâ€™ 11,178 from 2007. Applying the national swing gives the Conservatives a 1,000 lead which seems a reasonable cushion before even considering an incumbency factor. Tory hold â€“ David McLetchie

Edinburgh Southern â€“ Labour are in clear second place here but the Lib Dems have a 3,955 lead from 2007. A lot will depend on the strength of Mike Pringleâ€™s personal vote (which I have no view on) but I think the Lib Dems will fight just enough on the doorsteps to hold on to this one Lib Dem hold â€“ Mike Pringle

Linlithgow â€“ Fiona Hyslop and Mary Mulligan renew old rivalries from 2007 as the SNP seek to close a 294 majority from 2007 (old boundaries, maj = 1,150). The boundaries have been kind but unless we start to see the SNP pulling ahead in the national polls, I can see no reason why there should be a surprise gain here. Labour hold â€“ Mary Mulligan

Midlothian North & Musselburgh â€“ A similar situation to Linlithgow but with a wider majority for Labour to defend over the SNP from 2007. Rhona Brankin may be stepping down but an SNP gain would still be a shock. Labour gain â€“ Bernard Harkins

So that is the contentious constituencies out of the way, now for the regional breakdown on the basis of a national voteshare of Lab-37%, SNP-34%,Con-15%,LD-10%,Grn-5% (adjusting, as always, for the specific regional split by party in 2007)

NB: The Greens could win 2 MSPs here and I’m sure it could be done in a number of ways but by my calculations, the Conservative national voteshare would have to fall to around 12.7% and the Green vote share be at around 6.7% to enable this to happen, unless of course the SNP were to start dropping to below 30% (which I find unlikely).

Tactical voting considerations â€“ The Lib Dems do not win an extra MSP if they miss out on one of Edinburgh Western or Edinburgh Southern. Consequently, a tactical vote (from a Green or SNP perspective) would be to consider voting Lib Dem in their winnable seats in this region. As the Conservatives are close to not getting a second MSP from the regional vote if they win Edinburgh Pentlands (but would definitely win one if McLetchie lost out), then a tactical vote, again from a Green or SNP perspective, is to vote David McLetchie in Edinburgh Pentlands.

“Vote Tory”, what a strange way to sign off on a region post but that is how the Lothians works sometimes; you often have to go backwards in order to move forwards. Just ask the Edinburgh Trams team…

This entry was posted on March 23, 2011, 1:41 pm and is filed under Elections. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0.
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30 Comments (and 3 trackbacks)

For once I actually feel that your “intuition” is way off – and displays that perhaps you’re now out of touch with Edinburgh politics and therefore not best placed to make predictions….

So – here goes for the things that you don’t mention:

Sarah Boyack is indeed a respected politician, but due to boundary changes has lost a significant number of her voters. She is also orphaned form any Labour campaign machine – Labour still organise on a Westminster, not Holyrood basis – and it is well know that she has been left without human and financial resources by the squabbling CLPs that share responsibility for her area. Why do you think that she has been allowed to be the exception to the rule and allowed to stand in both list and constituency?

You fail to mention that the Lib Dem and SNP candidates are very well resourced and have extremely strong on-the-ground campaigns. You actually fail to mention Marco at all – he is both doing well and notionally & on-the-ground is a clear challenger. Also, don’t write off Cole-Hamilton for the Lib Dems: he’s leading a strongly resourced local campaign, has a seemingly bottomless pit of cash and has covered the area well (with the usual Lib Dem nonsense!)

Edinburgh East – sorry, but again if you knew anything about what was actually happening in the constituency you’d know that Kenny’s personal vote is rocketing – and Labour know it. Yes, they have a strong campaign and an excellent campaign leader, but their candidate is awful…. Anyone who is under the illusion that this area is going Labour is simply sampling party loyalty, rather than asking which candidate they will be voting for.

And with regards to Shirley-Anne Somerville, I take exception to the “parachuted in” dig: Shirley-Anne has been working hard in Edinburgh for a long time, previously stood in areas covered by the new constituency and is nationally recognised as leading the key political debates in North and Leith – ie Trams and Biomass for instance.

Thanks for the comment Chris. Some fair points and others, I believe, less so (Andrea has already replied on your rather odd comment regarding Sarah Boyack)

So much in all of this is subjective, thatâ€™s part of the fun, and we quickly get to an â€˜agree to disagreeâ€™. You are correct that I am a long way from being â€˜on the groundâ€™ but I still have the emails from SNP candidates at GE2010 who were annoyed at their chances being dismissed on my old blog, lots of â€˜if you could see what I could see youâ€™d think differently, amazing canvassing returns, etc etcâ€™ comments. Each of them finished 3rd or 4th and I havenâ€™t heard a peep since. Itâ€™s understandable that people close to the action can whip themselves up into a position of over-believing. You must have thought at times that Calum Cashley was going to do better than 4th last year? One could argue that â€˜notâ€™ being on the ground gives you a better perspective of what is happening but thatâ€™s just me trying to make myself feel better about being stuck in London (honestly, Sydney 4 years ago, England now, will I ever get to be in town when the fun and games start!?)

I am largely going by the swing in the national polls with these posts, those votes have to go somewhere so thatâ€™s where Iâ€™m taking my armour from blog-reprisals. So, if the SNP surges forwards over the next week or two, then that will form the basis of a change of mind on Kennyâ€™s chances or Fiona Hyslopâ€™s (I maintain that Marco has little chance beyond being an also-ran, hence his not getting a special mention). Keep in mind that the polls suggest Kenny will lose by 2,200 votes. One could say Iâ€™m being generous by even saying itâ€™s a toss-up! Anyway, such a Salmond surge is perfectly possible of course, with Soutarâ€™s cash still to spend and Gray struggling to gain a foothold to stop the backwards momentum. I donâ€™t think the â€˜anti-Tory = pro-Labourâ€™ sentiment should be underplayed though.

Weâ€™re in unchartered territory these days and some people will get to say â€˜I told you soâ€™ in several weeks and some people will have a very tough May 6th once the votes are counted. 44 days and weâ€™ll find out which side of that divide youâ€™re on matey. I do genuinely hope itâ€™s the former.

What is odd about the Boyack statement? Labour used to have a “list or constituency but not both” rule – which is now being exceptionally ignored for Boyack and others in this election because they might lose. And in Boyack’s case that might be the case – and I would actually be sorry to see her go and replaced by a Lib Dem….

My original interpretation was that you were suggesting that Sarah Boyack is allowed to stand on the List and in the Constituency because “she has been left without human and financial resources by the squabbling CLPs that share responsibility for her area”.

I wrote at the time of the original boundary proposals (in 2008) that I thought that the boundaries for Edinburgh East (as it was then) would favour Labour over the SNP. I was invited (by colleagues) to change my opinion (thus it doesn’t appear in that link). That was based purely on the boundaries though.

To defend Jeff, he’s using recent polling to give a picture of what would happen if the election was roughly today. If it (the polling) is correct, we’d be seeing what Jeff suggests. Further, I live in Edinburgh and I asked Jeff if he would do the Lothians picture so that it was less biased/ perhaps more objective than my own take on matters. Being here has its advantages (as you say, you know about the local circumstances) but being above the fray, so to speak, is also useful, because then you can simply look at the numbers and boundaries etc and project from that.

But also, as Jeff says, he got a lot of comments last year from SNP activists saying they were going to win… and then nothing when his “Lab holds” were proven accurate. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating – though I do suspect that the polls will tighten dramatically the closer to election day we get, making our projections something of a moot point!

“Why do you think that she has been allowed to be the exception to the rule and allowed to stand in both list and constituency?”

All Labour constituency MSPs with their majorities taken away by boundary changes have been allowed to do so. Lewis MacDonald and Murray are doing it too (I suppose McIntosh isn’t doing it because it’s pointless to stand in Labour West Scotland list)

Don’t know much about Lothians but I totally agree with Chris that Labour are seriously disadvantaged by having their constituency organisations structured on Westminster boundaries. If the CLPs are not seeing eye to eye in Edinburgh Central that’s not the only place this is happening. Also, Labour seem to be getting dragged into the AV referendum while the SNP is quite sensibly ignoring it.

The polls show both Labour and SNP benefitting from the LibDem collapse.

My contention is that ex-LibDem votes will largely go to incumbents (as long as they are effective) because when people make a change they almost always opt for the most comfortable change available.

I fully expect the SNP to retain their two FPTP seats with comfortable majorities – certainly 4 figures. I posted somewhere a while back that it was difficult to see why any seat would change hands between Labour and the SNP, although there is usually a surprise somewhere along the way, and the latest polls showing a gap of 3 – 4 % on the constituency vote make that a highly likely scenario.

I think the SNP has made a mistake in changing its candidate in Edinburgh West because I think a lot of votes that would have come Sheena Cleland’s way because of her years of campaiging in that seat will now go elsewhere.

Whilst I still think the Liberals will hold Edinburgh Western, I don’t think it’s nearly as safe as you point out. The SNP surged to second place there last time and at the general election the Liberal Democrat vote crashed by a massive 13.6%. If they can do that badly in an election where they were polling very well, I wouldn’t be surprised if the SNP don’t come very close to winning that seat.

The Tories are a close third, but I don’t see them gaining anything and Labour are practically written off in this seat, meaning any swing to them from the Liberals wont really help them.

Just thought I would take expand on this seat, since you only gave it one line and it is my local constituency.

Yeah, I was running out of time with this post a little bit. If ‘W’ was higher up the alphabet, I might have written more.

Fair points about the Lib Dem vote crashing in Edinburgh Western in 2010 but there was a changing of the guard at the time and consequently no incumbency factor; Margaret Smith has been an MSP here for twelve years with a stonking majority every time. Yes, the gap will close and yes the Lib Dems sold out on fees but this is posh Lib Dem territory, the SNP has changed its challenger, the bulk of Nat activists will be elsewhere and, so, there shouldn’t be too many major shocks here.

Yes, I do agree with that. The gap has been closing at almost every election since the first Scottish Parliament election, so I only think it’s a matter of time before it eventually switches hands. It probably won’t happen this time.

Also, why does everyone else in Edinburgh call people from Corstorphine/Murrayfield/Cramond posh all the time?!?

In terms of “the gap closing at almost every election since the first”. Keep in mind that is only 3 elections so there is only 2 opportunities for the gap to close. That gap has been 16.8%, 17.8%, 16.9% over the past 3 elections, it doesn’t really suggest it’s going to swing past 0% does it?

I was living in a safe Lib Dem seat for the 2010 election, I know how dull it can be.

16 seats in the constituency (9+7). If Jeff’s predictions are correct (and I agree – I’m not sold on ALL of them!) then we’d have a 50:50 male to female split of representatives (which, I suspect, would be a first for a Scottish Parliamentary region).

If Almond Valley stays with the SNP we might see a female majority, since Angela Constance would win the seat at the expense of a male while if Labour were compensated on the list (and I haven’t done the numbers for this) then Kezia Dugdale would enter Holyrood.

i think a very honest appraisal of the situation in the lothians. Canvas returns are all very well, but the professional pollsters get paid for a reason. they were pretty close in 2010 and no reason (as you comment later) for them not to be right now. A lot of close seats here, Eastern, Central, Southern, Pentlands? even west if things are really bad for the libs (SNP could be a close 2nd).

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